Morag Kuc

Shadow Rural Affairs Secretary Peter Chapman has welcomed a plan from Royal Bank of Scotland to offer support to young farmers entering the industry.

RBS has announced that it will provide face-to-face “mentoring” meetings with new entrants, whether they bank with the company or not.

Research conducted by the bank shows that farmers are driving “significant enterprise trends” in the sector. RBS said that almost 20,000 new diversification projects could be delivered by young farmers, generating £11,900 in additional income per farm.

Mr Chapman, a Scottish Conservative MSP for the north-east region MSP, said: “Young farmers are the lifeblood of the industry and we need to do all we can to help new entrants.

“This type of advice and support could prove to be invaluable to farmers starting out. To have experts on hand for a three-year period would be an enormous help.

“I am particularly pleased to hear that the mentoring service will be made available to all – not only whether people are customers or not – but also regardless of scale.

“This should be warmly welcomed and I would encourage anyone who may be eligible to find out more about it.”